


Content With Dreaming

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel Ultimates, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Flirting, M/M, Misunderstandings, Prostitution, Sexual Frustration, Teasing, Ults Day, Unresolved Sexual Tension, hooker tony, repressed Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 07:19:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12383502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: When Steve saves a stranger from an attack, it seems only friendly to invite him in.  Tony gets the wrong idea.AKA Tony is a hooker and Steve is sexually frustrated





	Content With Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> For Ults day and also a very tenuous fill for ‘popsicle’ on my bingo card.
> 
> This story is 100% the fault of Coaster and the rest of the stevetony discord. They made me do it. Also thanks to Coaster for the beta.
> 
> \--
> 
> “The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.” - Sigmund Freud

Captain America doesn’t get days off. He’s been in the twenty-first century for a little over a month now and there is always someone causing trouble. Hardly a block from his front door and there are scumbags at it again. Three men against one. They’re holding the guy’s shoulders, pulling his hair. They punch him in the stomach and push him to his knees. Someone’s sticking fingers in the poor guy’s mouth. Steve wonders how long it will take them to learn that these are his streets now.

He stands in the streetlight and calls out to them. ‘Leave now and I won’t hurt you. That’s your only warning.’

They turn to him, one’s hand is still in their victim’s hair. Steve’s fingers twitch for his shield. ‘What’s he, your boyfriend? Fuck off, pretty boy.’ 

They’re not dumb teenagers or thugs, they’re dressed up in suits and ties and one even has a briefcase. It boils his blood to see men who should know better, acting like thugs. ‘I warned you.’

‘Yeah? And what the fuck are you going to do?’ The streetlight catches a glint of metal in their hands. Steve’s eyes turn to their victim, he's quiet and still, but clear eyes are watching everything. Steve hopes he has the sense to stay out of trouble when the fighting starts. 

‘I’m going to make you wish you’d never come around here.’ If he’s ever wanted to make grown men cry for their mamas, it’s these men. They laughs. Steve smiles. He lets them take the first swing. Predictably it’s the guy with the big mouth. One uppercut and he’s flat on his back clutching at his mangled jaw, blood dripping through his fingers. The second swings a switchblade but a parry lands the blade in the man’s own shoulder. The third stares at the carnage as his friends writhe on the floor. He turns and runs. 

‘Coward.,' Steve says. 

There’s a trash can to his left and it’s not ideal, but for these kind of half-baked assholes, it’ll be more than enough. He tosses the lid, watches it hit the back of the coward' s head with a thunk and the man hits the floor, no moaning or writhing, just hitting the concrete like deadweight. Steve would worry that he killed him if he could bring himself to care about the dirt bags bringing this city to its knees.

For now he turns to the man kneeing in a puddle of old rainwater, dress shirt stained and torn and hanging from his shoulders. He thinks of what those scumbags were planning and it makes him sick. ‘Are you okay?’ He doesn’t touch and stands far enough away to give the man space.

‘Walking on sunshine.’ He guesses that’s supposed to be positive, but there’s a strain in the man’s voice that says otherwise. 

‘Do you need me to take you to the hospital?’ But the man’s already up and brushing dirt from pants that are two sizes too small and plastered to his legs with dirty water up to the knee.

‘You’re a doll, but it’s fine. I’ve had much worse.’

‘Worse?’ Steve shakes his head. ‘Sometimes I wonder what sort of place this city has become.’

The man wipes blood from his split lips, it drags across them painting them red like vivid lipstick. His lips are swelling from the cut and it makes them look full, almost pouting. He could imagine kissing them. The man's tongue flicks out and licks away the blood. Steve looks away. If the man shaved the goatee, those lips would look almost feminine, and that’s all it is.

‘That was quite a show.’ The man gestures to the thugs lying semi-conscious on the ground.

Steve snaps his thoughts back to the matter at hand. It’s wildly inappropriate to be thinking such things about a man who’s just been attacked so intimately. ‘Well, I don’t like seeing people terrorised. Especially not in my city.’

‘Your city, huh?’

‘I won’t tolerate bullies or thugs as long as I’m living here.’

‘Well, you’re just a regular Mr Rogers in the flesh, aren’t you?’ For a moment Steve wonders how the man knows his name, but he soon realises it’s just another modern reference he doesn’t get. ‘Honestly, it’s not usually that bad. There’ll always be a few bad apples. Guess guys like you will just have to keep making up for them.’

‘Did they take anything?’

‘Nothing they were after, darling.’

And the sense of relief, that he wasn’t too late, it’s euphoric. Sends tingles down his spine, curls his lips with a smile. It’s the feeling that makes all the hard things he has to deal with as Captain America worth it. ‘Good,’ he says.

‘I really do appreciate you stepping in, most people would’ve just walked on by.’

‘I’m not most people.’

‘Oh I would not make that mistake, handsome.’ It’s almost flirtatious, but he gets the impression that’s just how the guy speaks, he’d say it to anyone. It’s not a come on, but he’s starting to understand how the man found himself in this position.

‘Do you have a phone?’ Steve asks.

‘Do I… are you serious?’ Apparently everyone but him carries one these days. He’ll have to ask Jan about it.

‘You should call the police. Men like these should be behind bars.’

‘No. I don’t think they’d be interested. That aside, I think they’ve learned their lesson.’ And there’s some kind of emotion there that he can’t quite place. He supposes it’s natural for a man to be embarrassed by such an intimate attack. It rattles him to let these scumbags go, but it’s not up to him. He hopes he’s done enough to make them think twice next time.

The man is starting to shiver, goosebumps show on his stomach where too many buttons are gone to hold his tight shirt closed. And Steve definitely doesn’t notice the sharp outline of his nipples where the shirt is drawn close to his skin. It’s too cold to be soaked and half naked and he can’t in good conscience leave the man like this. ‘Why don’t you come to my place?’ He asks. ‘I’ve got clothes you can change into.’

The man rolls his neck like he’s thinking about it and his shirt rides low over his shoulders again. He doesn’t correct it this time. ‘You live around here?’

‘Just down the block.’

‘Well, I suppose I owe you a favour don’t I, darling?’ He’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but this favour is the least his conscience could take. ‘Lead the way.’ So Steve lays a hand on his back and steers him in the right direction. ‘What’s a clean cut guy like you doing round these parts, anyway?’

‘I grew up round here. You?’ Steve asks.

‘Work.’ He says it kind of terse, like it should be obvious, but Steve can’t see a single reason for a smart dressed guy like him to be working in these parts. They’re at his door before he can question it. He takes them up and fiddles with the fancy lock Jan had fitted. He doesn’t keep much of value, but she’d insisted after the last break in. When they’re finally in, the man slumps on the couch like he owns the place, long legs crossed and dripping dirty water all over the carpet. He tries not to stare, but there’s something almost sensual about it; he drapes himself across furniture in a way Steve’s only ever seen life models do. Steve heads for the kitchen to take his mind off it. ‘Can I get you a coffee or anything?’

‘Irish, if you please.’

What a liberty. But he’s still new enough to this century that he’s not sure if it’s a normal request these day. ‘Sorry, I don’t drink much. I think I have some wine.’  
‘Don’t sweat it, soldier. Coffee will be fine.’

Steve flicks the coffee on to brew and stands from the counter watching his guest. ‘What gave it away? That I’m a soldier, I mean.’

‘Oh please, the way you took those guys out, you’re either a soldier or a ninja and you’re not wearing a skin-tight cat suit, more’s the pity, so soldier it is.’

He gets out the nice mugs, the ones that cost so much he’s scared to use them, the ones he only bought so Jan would stop calling him cheap. Fingers rapping on the counter. His guest’s voice, ‘So what do I call you?’

‘Steve.’ He feels bad for not offering it before now.

‘Good, classic name. Nice choice. Suits you.’

And he’s caught on ‘nice choice’ like he had some say in it. This guy’s just getting stranger. ‘Thanks,’ he says, because if there was one thing his mother taught him it’s how to be polite to even the oddest people. He pours the coffee and hands a mug to his guest, but doesn’t sit. ‘And your name?’

‘You know what, you can call me Tony.’ He gets the impression that’s supposed to be a compliment, but he doesn’t know why.

‘Well, nice to meet you, Tony. I’ll go get you those clothes.’

‘No. Sit for a while. That can wait.’

So he sits on the couch, hardly a foot between them. He can smell Tony’s aftershave. A heavy sweet smell, like he’s applied half a bottle. Tony sips at his coffee and moans like he’s never tasted cheap filter coffee before. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows it like water. Steve’s fingers clench around his mug. Tony holds the near empty mug in his lap and fingers glide around the rim. In anyone else he’d think it was an anxious tick, but this is something more deliberate. ‘So,’ Tony says after a time, ‘what are you interested in? I’ll do you for a discount.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Listen, I’ve fucked two businessmen over fifty tonight and I really owe you. At this point I’ll blow you for ten bucks or give you the works for thirty. Kinky shit’s still extra.’

‘You’re… You’re a hooker?’ It doesn’t make sense. He’s not naive enough to think that no men do it, but he always imagined something different. More sinister. Baby faced victims or all leather pants and whips. Tony is well dressed and carefully groomed, a slick talking, smiling face. And if he’s honest with himself, blatantly and effortlessly sexual.

‘I generally prefer the term escort, but if it helps you to think like that.’

‘My god.’ And it all clicks into place. ‘Those men, were they… customers?’

‘Got it in one.’

Steve stands, paces, fingers flexing. ‘You think I want to have sex with you?’

Tony scoffs. ‘Well I didn’t think you invited me here to play checkers.’

‘Dear lord.’ He’s brought a whore to his home. There’s a man sitting on his couch expecting money for sex. Not even a woman. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He grabs the lapels of Tony’s already torn shirt and hauls him to his feet. ‘What kind of man do you think I am?’

Tony doesn’t react, his arms stay limp at his sides and he stares Steve in the eye without flinching. ‘I don’t know,’ he says, ‘what kind of man do you think _I_ am?’

He wonders what drives a man to this. That he would waste his days on his knees for people whose names he doesn’t know. That he would spend his dignity on a bit of spare cash. He lets go. ‘I’m not having sex with you. I’m not even a homosexual.’

Tony raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe him, and Steve gets the urge to hit him again. He reminds himself that Tony has learned this. He probably hasn’t been in the home of a man who didn’t want to fuck him in years. ‘For Christ’s sake, I was just trying to help you.’

‘You already did, darling. I’m returning the favour. If it helps, you can buy me dinner first.’

He thinks of Tony turned out on the streets with an empty belly and dirty clothes, looking for the next client who could turn on him too. He thinks of some scumbag holding him down, using him, and something twists in his stomach, some strange mix of pity and anger that makes him want to hide Tony away from the world and never let another man touch him again. He should tell him to leave, to never be seen in his home, on his street, in his city ever again. But he knows that really, it’s not Tony he’s disgusted with. ‘I’ll buy you dinner.’ He wants to make this better.

‘Excellent. Madison Park? Daniel’s? Le Bernardin?’

‘How about the all-night diner down the block.’

‘Needs must, I suppose.’ As he waves his arms in a whole bodied shrug, Steve’s attention is brought back to his clothes. Mud stains drying on his pants, shirt leaving nothing to the imagination.

‘You need to get changed first.’

Tony looks at his clothes with a frown, as if he’s only just noticed the state he’s in. ‘It is rather unbecoming, isn’t it?’

‘Wait here.’ Steve leaves Tony in the living room and digs through the back of his closet for something that might fit. Finds the smallest things he owns, skin tight white shirt and jeans that Jan had convinced him were fashionable but he’s felt too self-conscious to wear since. They’ll still hang on Tony like potato sacks and maybe help curb a little of that constant provocation.

Back in the living room, Tony is standing there buck naked, clothes neatly folded and placed on the coffee table. His skin hairless and pale, Steve would bet if he ran his fingers across it he’d find it as soft as any woman’s. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He turns his back and tries not to picture the curve of hips, the curl of well-groomed pubic hair, what he’d look like with a man’s hands all over him. He breathes through clenched teeth. Tony is a hooker, it’s his job to seduce people. These thoughts don’t make him a pervert. It’s his actions that count and no matter how Tony teases, he would never act on this. He does not pay for sex, and especially not with a man. He throws the clothes over his shoulder without glancing back. ‘Put these on.’ 

‘No need to be prudish, dear. I don’t have anything you don’t have. I should hope not, anyway.’

‘Just put the damned clothes on.’

The most exaggerated sigh, some shuffling, then, ‘I’m decent, dear.’

The clothes hang off him, showing his collarbone and riding low on his hips. It doesn’t help at all. Steve tries not to look too closely. ‘Let’s go.’ On the way out, Steve grabs an extra jacket and throws it to him, but he drapes it across his arm like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Steve wonders what it’d take to get him to show an ounce of modesty.

\--

The diner’s a nice enough place for this part of town. The paintwork isn’t peeling and he’s never seen a cockroach, so by default it’s ten time better the other local eateries. He chooses a booth in the back because dammit, he’s having dinner with a hooker, and maybe he’d never have known it, but some people round these parts probably know Tony. He shouldn’t be ashamed, he’s doing nothing wrong. But all the same, he’d rather no one get a photo of Captain America with a male prostitute.

The waitress approaches with the kind of forced smile you only get when you’re horribly bored but your tip depends on it. ‘What can I get you two?’

‘Cheese burger and fries,’ says Steve. ‘And a vanilla milkshake.’

Tony smirks. ‘Vanilla, huh?’

Steve scowls. ‘Got a problem with that?’

‘None whatsoever. Good, strong foundation. Delicious in its own right. Of course it’d be a crying shame if you’ve never tasted anything else.’ He has a feeling they’re not talking about milkshakes anymore.

Steve turns back the waitress. ‘He’ll have the same.’

‘And a bottle of champagne.’ Steve clears his throat. ‘Don’t worry, darling, that I’ll pay for.’

The waitress doesn’t look so bored anymore. ‘Uh, sorry, we only stock beer.’

Tony pulls a face. ‘Well, that will have to do then, won’t it?’ And with a limp hand wave, he dismisses her.

They sit in silence for a while, the drinks come and Steve stares at his glass as he tries not to stare at Tony. He wonders how anyone could do what Tony does and look at themselves in the mirror. What drives a man to such desperation?

‘What’s on your mind, darling?’

It seems wildly inappropriate to ask, but here he is, paying for a hooker’s dinner after saving him from an attack. He deserves at least a little explanation. ‘Why do you do it?’

Tony looks neither offended nor contemplative. Steve supposes it’s a question he asks himself a lot. ‘Mostly for the money,’ he says, ‘but a part of it’s spite.’

‘Spite?’

‘Before they died, my parents cut me out of the inheritance. Left the entire family fortune to my narcissistic brother.’ He’s trying to make it sound light, but he’s fiddling with his napkin and there’s a tensions in his shoulders that’s only noticeable because he’s been so fluid until now. ‘Every now and then, the press pick up on what I’m up to these days and he has to spend millions covering it up.’

Steve frowns. It sounds horribly shallow. Not at all the picture he’d imagined of a desperate, poor kid pushed to a place he didn’t want to go. ‘So you’re a spoiled rich kid who’s selling his body to get back at his family? That’s terrible. You’re making a mockery of people who face real hardship. You like selling yourself? You like men using you like some kind of… some kind of…’

‘Whore?’ Tony shrugs. ‘Don’t presume you know me after five minutes and a coffee. Like I said, it’s mostly the money.’

Maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s more to it than it sounds. But he doesn’t understand. ‘There must be better ways to make money.’

‘This may be hard for you to understand, but it’s no great sufferance. Sure, parts of the job are shit, but parts of any job are shit. If I worked in Walmart I’d have to deal with shitty customers sometimes and I’d get paid a hell of a lot less.’

‘But those shitty customers wouldn’t try to rape you.’

‘I think of it more as theft. I’m selling a product. Sometimes people don’t want to pay.’

‘Your body is not a product. You’re a human being, not some toy to be played with.’

‘Listen, grandpa, I don’t need a lecture. I do what I do, I’m good at it and it gets me what I need. Sometimes shit happens, sometimes it’s good shit. C'est la vie.’

Then the food comes and they drift into silence. Maybe this is normal now. Everything in this world is so different to what he’s known, maybe prostitution is too. Maybe Tony chose this life because he wanted to, not because he needed to. And even though it stings a little to admit even to himself, he can’t help but wonders if maybe that’s better.

He watches Tony dip his fries in mayonnaise and lick and suck it off the tip before he eats them. He looks so focused on the food that Steve isn’t sure if he’s being deliberately sensual or it’s just so ingrained in his nature that he can’t be anything else. Steve picks at his food because he can’t look away from the way Tony eats. Every move he makes exudes sex, like he’s been dipped in honey and chocolate and his ambient body temperature is five degrees higher than normal. It’s hypnotic and frightening.

When he’s done he licks his fingers, then sucks them right to the knuckle, far further than necessary and for much too long, then he flicks them from his lips with wet pops. A string of saliva sticks to his pinkie and trails down his chin. It would be disgusting if it wasn’t so mesmerising. ‘Good food, darling,’ he says. ‘Why aren’t you eating?’

Steve looks at his untouched burger and half eaten fries. ‘Guess I’m not that hungry. You want it?’ He could watch Tony eat all day.

‘Well I just can’t say no to eating a guy’s meat.’

Steve raises an eyebrow. ‘That was poor.’

Tony smiles like the sun. His eyes crinkle and his cheekbones are highlighted, perfect white teeth shine through where his lips draw up. Steve wonders if it’s the first genuine emotion he’s seen all night. ‘Well,’ Tony says, ‘they can’t all be winners. But seriously, I’d rather have dessert.’

‘Oh,’ Steve says, and he imagines Tony’s lips wrapped about a popsicle. How he would make it look like something pornographic. Mothers would cover their children’s eyes. He glances at the menu and is almost disappointed. He calls the waitress over and orders pie he doesn’t want because he won’t be so obvious. Tony orders chocolate cake and whipped cream and Steve wonders if it’s what he wants or what he thinks he should get.

When the food comes, Tony pokes him with his spoon. ‘Of course you’re an apple pie, guy.’ And before Steve can think to reply, Tony is licking whipped cream from the tip of his spoon. Chocolate sticks at the edge of his lips and his tongue struggles to lick it all away. Steve’s pie goes untouched.

He watches this man who spends half his days on his knees and the other half on his back, doing whatever he’s told and begging for more. All hands and mouths and straining muscles and hard cocks. Something stirs in his dick at the image of it but he stamps it down. It’s only been too long since he’s had sex. He’ll go back to his apartment alone and jack off in the shower thinking of Gail and only Gail. No pretty blue eyes and wolfish smile, tongue darting down that spoon, lips smacking like they would around a dick, stubble grazing balls as he takes him further than any woman Steve has ever known. He’s getting hard. His heart is pounding so quickly you could probably see it in his neck if you looked close enough. He rests his hands on the table, stares at his plate and thinks of Hitler, his mother, Arnie Roth who’d been caught kissing a boy when they were seven and been whipped so bad by his father he wasn’t in school for the next week.

‘Something wrong, darling?’

‘No, nothing.’ But even he notices the way his voice cracks like it hasn’t since he was a teenager.

‘You sure?’ Tony leans in across the table, face close, voice low, arms draped across the counter. ‘I could give you a hand job, right here, under the table. No one would know.’ His hands are moving with a slow, suggestive twist and it’s not hard to imagine what they’d feel like around his dick. It’s disgusting, degrading, immoral. And what’s worse is he’s tempted to say yes. ‘My hand on your dick, jacking you off in front of all these people. Think you could keep quiet?’

‘Stop.’ It’s a croak, barely a protest, but there must be something desperate in his eyes because Tony sighs and slumps back in his seat. 

‘Shame.’ And Tony licks a strip of chocolate from his spoon, his tongue flicking and fluttering entirely unnecessarily. ‘Might’ve dropped this.’ He lets go of the spoon, it clatters back to the bowl and Steve’s stomach does a flip-flop. He stares at the spoon and doesn’t see it. Thinks of how easy it would’ve been to just say yes. How easy it could still be.

But Tony checks his watch and sighs. ‘We’ll have to continue this another day. It’s been a pleasure.’ He sidles out of the booth, fingers wrapped around the edge of the table, long legs spreading as he scoots along the bench. He somehow makes even this look erotic.

‘Where are you going?’ Steve asks.

‘I’ve a clients booked at nine. Don’t think he’ll be too impressed if I show up like this.’ He runs his fingers down the chest of Steve’s borrowed baggy shirt and Steve thinks that Tony could make anything look attractive.

‘Will you be okay? Do you want me to come with you?’

‘That’s sweet of you, but he’s a regular, I’ll probably be with him for the rest of the night. Feel free to worry, though. You look pretty when you frown.’

‘Will I see you again?’ He hopes he says yes, and he hopes he says no.

Tony leans close, fingers grazing at Steve chin and kisses him on the cheek. To anyone watching it would seem chaste enough, but he feels Tony’s tongue running along his cheek, warm and wet and his face starts to burn. Tony pulls away slowly, lingers by his ear. ‘That one’s for free, soldier.’ It’s the kind of low, sensual whispers that goes straight to his dick, the kind he’d always thought only movie stars and chorus girls could pull off. ‘Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.’ Part of Steve hopes he doesn’t, that this will be the end of it, and he will never see, hear or think of Tony again. The other part, the part he’s going to pretend doesn’t exist, is already waiting with his face etched in his brain to search every street corner and whisper his name when he’s alone at night.

**Author's Note:**

> [On Tumblr](http://ironlawyer.tumblr.com/post/166470480367/ults-day-hooker-tony-fic)


End file.
